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In America; Protecting Abortion Clinics

The bomb went off about 7:30 in the morning, just as Emily Lyons was heading into work. The damage was devastating.

''I lost my left eye and it damaged my right eye,'' Ms. Lyons said in a telephone interview on Thursday. ''Just today I got a contact lens. It's a big deal for me. It's the first time I'm able to see in nine months.''

Ms. Lyons, a registered nurse, was walking into the New Woman, All Women Health Care Clinic in Birmingham, Ala., last Jan. 29 when the homemade bomb exploded. It killed an off-duty policeman, Robert Sanderson, who worked as a security guard at the clinic.

Ms. Lyons was almost killed. ''It pretty much mangled my right hand,'' she said. ''And my little finger was broken and didn't heal right, so I've got a permanently polite little pinky, like when you drink tea. The lower right side of my abdomen had a hole the size of your fist in it. They had to repair that. They had to remove part of my large and small intestine.

''Both of my kneecaps were full of nails. They had to open those up. Remove the nails so the joints would move again. My left leg was broken. They had to repair that. And my body is covered with dark spots. Long dark spots. That's where all the nails went in.''

Abortions were performed at the clinic and it had been a target of protesters for years. The bomb exploded a week after the 25th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. The person who planted the bomb has not been caught.

Ms. Lyons is married and the mother of two teen-age daughters. Her job at the clinic was to counsel women who were considering an abortion. For that she almost paid with her life.

This week Ms. Lyons will take a small political step that she hopes will help the many men and women who face similar dangers. She will appear in a television ad in New York criticizing Senator Alfonse D'Amato for voting against a bill designed to protect doctors and other health care workers and their clients from violent acts by anti-abortion extremists.

The ad is sponsored by the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League. The bill, which passed and was signed into law by President Clinton in 1994, made it a Federal crime to attack or blockade an abortion clinic. It was sponsored by Representative Charles Schumer, who is running against Mr. D'Amato for the Senate.

Mr. D'Amato's office did not respond to questions last week about why he had opposed the bill, which was known as the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.

Kate Michelman, the league's president, said, ''It took several deaths to finally have Congress take a serious look at the fact that in some communities across the country law enforcement officials either were not able to address the problem or they, frankly, were not willing to take action because some of them agreed with the protesters.''

A vote for the bill was not a vote in favor of abortion. It was a vote against the use of violence and murder to achieve a political end. As Ms. Michelman said, ''It was about enforcing the rule of law in a civilized society.''

The law has helped reduce violence at abortion clinics, but the problem, as the attack in Birmingham showed, is still a serious one. A survey by the Feminist Majority Foundation found that nearly 25 percent of abortion clinics were targets of violence or threats of violence in 1997. The survey said the clinics were plagued by ''blockades, invasions, bomb threats and bombings, arson threats and arsons, chemical attacks, death threats and stalking.''

Ms. Lyons said that as she began the long, slow recovery from her wounds she felt compelled ''to do whatever it takes in the future to make sure this doesn't happen to someone else.''

She taped the ad on Friday. In it she says, ''When a bomb ripped through my clinic I almost lost my life, and it will never be the same. When Al D'Amato had a chance, he voted against protecting women's health clinics from anti-abortion terrorists. I am determined to stop this violence against women, so I'm speaking out.''

I asked Ms. Lyons how she and her family were doing emotionally in the aftermath of the attack. ''Pretty well,'' she said. ''It's what life has dealt us this year. You take it and go with it.''